chapter 8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!women and marriage

So chapter 8 is all from Mina's point of view, which means that even though some important things happen in it, its really boring. At the start of the chapter there are some references to the "New Woman", which is basically about feminism, and there are some slightly sarcastic remarks about women proposing to men and stuff. So we get the idea that Stoker isn't really a fan of woman being allowed to do anything other than stay in the kitchen. This attitude is also shown in his characterization of Mina, who is meant to be this perfect woman but is actually a pathetic, stereotypically stupid female who gets scared by cows.

Anyway then Lucy goes missing during the night, and Mina ventures out to get her. She spots her "half-reclining" outside the abbey with some mysterious black shape (Dracula) bending over her. There are quite a few things in this scene that could be symbolic of a wedding - Lucy's white nightdress and the Count's black clothes represent the traditional clothes worn at a wedding, and the ruined abbey could be seen as a slightly twisted version of a wedding chapel.

So anyway then Mina runs over (I was kind of surprised by this, i thought she would have been too scared. I guess she's not completely useless) and Dracula disappears, but not before she glimpses his "white face and red, gleaming eyes". when she reaches Lucy, Lucy is breathing in "long, heavy gasps" which suggests the aftermath of a physical act - maybe Dracula raped her. And there's blood on her dress too, which could have been the breaking of the hymen. This all adds to the macabre wedding theory.

So then Mina takes Lucy home, and is so worried that people will see her without shoes on that she covers her feet in mud. Because mud looks so much like shoes.

The next day she notices that Lucy has these little "red points like pin-pricks" on her throat, but instead of coming to the conclusion that Lucy has been bitten by a vampire, she thinks she pricked it on a safety-pin. Stupid.

In conclusion, judging from his characters, Stoker was basically sexist and probably agreed with that Madonna-Whore Freud thing, since all the women in Dracula are either idiots (Mina) or whores (vampire brides).